Today is the birthday (1546) of Tyge Ottesen Brahe, known in the English-speaking world as Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman, astronomer, and writer known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. He was born in the then-Danish (now Swedish) peninsula of Scania. His observations, done only with the naked eye before telescopes were available, were about five times more accurate than the best available observations at the time.

Tycho aspired to a level of accuracy in his estimated positions of celestial bodies of being consistently within a arcminute of their real celestial locations, and also claimed to have achieved this level. But, in fact, many of the stellar positions in his star catalogues were less accurate than that. To perform the huge number of multiplications needed to produce much of his astronomical data, Tycho relied heavily on a new technique called prosthaphaeresis, an algorithm for approximating products based on trigonometric identities that predated logarithms.

Although Tycho admired Copernicus and was the first to teach his theory in Denmark, he was unable to reconcile Copernican theory with the basic laws of Aristotelian physics, that he considered to be foundational. He was also critical of the observational data that Copernicus built his theory on, which he correctly considered to have a high margin of error. Instead, Tycho proposed a “geo-heliocentric” system in which the Sun and Moon orbited the Earth, while the other planets orbited the Sun. Tycho’s system had many of the same observational and computational advantages that Copernicus’ system had, and both systems could also accommodate the phases of Venus, although Galileo had yet to discover them. Tycho’s system provided a safe position for astronomers who were dissatisfied with older models but were reluctant to accept heliocentrism and the Earth’s motion. It gained a considerable following after 1616 when Rome declared that the heliocentric model was contrary to both philosophy and Scripture, and could be discussed only as a computational convenience that had no connection to fact. Tycho’s system also offered a major innovation: while both the purely geocentric model and the heliocentric model as set forth by Copernicus relied on the idea of transparent rotating crystalline spheres to carry the planets in their orbits, Tycho eliminated the spheres entirely. Kepler, as well as other Copernican astronomers, tried to persuade Tycho to adopt the heliocentric model of the solar system, but he was not persuaded. According to Tycho, the idea of a rotating and revolving Earth would be “in violation not only of all physical truth but also of the authority of Holy Scripture, which ought to be paramount.”

With respect to physics, Tycho held that the Earth was just too sluggish and heavy to be continuously in motion. According to the accepted Aristotelian physics of the time, the heavens (whose motions and cycles were continuous and unending) were made of “Aether” or “Quintessence.” This substance, not found on Earth, was light, strong, unchanging, and its natural state was circular motion. By contrast, the Earth (where objects seem to have motion only when moved) and things on it were composed of substances that were heavy and whose natural state was rest. Accordingly, Tycho said the Earth was a “lazy” body that was not readily moved. Thus while Tycho acknowledged that the daily rising and setting of the sun and stars could be explained by the Earth’s rotation, as Copernicus had said, he, nonetheless believed that, “such a fast motion could not belong to the earth, a body very heavy and dense and opaque, but rather belongs to the sky itself whose form and subtle and constant matter are better suited to a perpetual motion, however fast.”

With respect to the stars, Tycho also believed that, if the Earth orbited the Sun annually, there should be an observable stellar parallax over any period of six months, during which the angular orientation of a given star would change thanks to Earth’s changing position. (This parallax does exist, but is so small it was not detected until 1838, when Friedrich Bessel discovered a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds of the star 61 Cygni.) The Copernican explanation for this lack of parallax was that the stars were such a great distance from Earth that Earth’s orbit was almost insignificant by comparison. However, Tycho noted that this explanation introduced another problem: Stars as seen by the naked eye appear small, but of some size, with more prominent stars such as Vega appearing larger than lesser stars such as Polaris, which in turn appear larger than many others. Tycho had determined that a typical star measured approximately a minute of arc in size, with more prominent ones being two or three times as large. In writing to Christoph Rothmann, a Copernican astronomer, Tycho used basic geometry to show that, assuming a small parallax that just escaped detection, the distance to the stars in the Copernican system would have to be 700 times greater than the distance from the sun to Saturn. Moreover, the only way the stars could be so distant and still appear the sizes they do in the sky would be if even average stars were gigantic — at least as big as the orbit of the Earth, and of course vastly larger than the sun. And, Tycho said, the more prominent stars would have to be even larger still. And what if the parallax was even smaller than anyone thought, so the stars were yet more distant? Then they would all have to be even larger still. . . which, in fact, they are.

Kepler used Tycho’s records of the motion of Mars to deduce laws of planetary motion, enabling calculation of astronomical tables with unprecedented accuracy (the Rudolphine Tables) and providing powerful support for a heliocentric model of the solar system. Galileo’s 1610 telescopic discovery that Venus shows a full set of phases refuted the pure geocentric Ptolemaic model. After that it seems 17th-century astronomy mostly converted to geo-heliocentric planetary models that could explain these phases just as well as the heliocentric model could, but without the latter’s disadvantage of the failure to detect any annual stellar parallax that Tycho and others regarded as refuting it.

The three main geo-heliocentric models were the Tychonic, the Capellan with just Mercury and Venus orbiting the Sun such as favored by Francis Bacon, for example, and the extended Capellan model of Riccioli with Mars also orbiting the Sun whilst Saturn and Jupiter orbit the fixed Earth. But the Tychonic model was probably the most popular, albeit probably in what was known as ‘the semi-Tychonic’ version with a daily rotating Earth. This model was advocated by Tycho’s ex-assistant and disciple Longomontanus in his 1622 Astronomia Danica that was the intended completion of Tycho’s planetary model with his observational data, and which was regarded as the canonical statement of the complete Tychonic planetary system.

The ardent anti-heliocentric French astronomer Jean-Baptiste Morin devised a Tychonic planetary model with elliptical orbits published in 1650 in a simplified, Tychonic version of the Rudolphine Tables. Some acceptance of the Tychonic system persisted through the 17th century and in places until the early 18th century; it was supported (after a 1633 decree about the Copernican controversy) by “a flood of pro-Tycho literature” of Jesuit origin. Among pro-Tycho Jesuits, Ignace Pardies declared in 1691 that it was still the commonly accepted system, and Francesco Blanchinus reiterated that as late as 1728. Persistence of the Tychonic system, especially in Catholic countries, has been attributed to its satisfaction of a need (relative to Catholic doctrine) for “a safe synthesis of ancient and modern”. After 1670, even many Jesuit writers only thinly disguised their Copernicanism. But in Germany, the Netherlands, and England, the Tychonic system vanished from scientific literature much earlier.

No dish better suits the celebration of Tycho Brahe than spettekaka or spettkaka (spiddekaga in native Scanian) a dessert that originates in the province of Scania (Skåne) where he was born. The name means “cake on a spit” which, as you will see from the video, exactly describes its production. A mixture consisting mainly of eggs, potato starch flour and sugar is squirted slowly on to a conical spit which is being rotated over an open fire or other heat source. So, a spinning dessert for an advocate of spinning bodies in space. Spettekaka can range in size anywhere from a few inches to several feet in height and over a foot in diameter. The very large cakes are served by sawing cuboids from the cake, leaving as much standing as possible. Spettekaka is frequently served accompanied by dark coffee, vanilla ice cream and port wine.

This video shows how spettekaka is made. Sorry it is in Swedish, but you’ll get the gist:

On this date in 1676, the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer published the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light. Until the early modern period, it was not known whether light travelled instantaneously or at a very fast finite speed. The first extant recorded examination of this subject was in ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks, Muslim scholars, and classical European scientists long debated this until Rømer provided the first calculation of the speed of light. Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity concluded that the speed of light is constant regardless of one’s frame of reference. That is, if you are traveling towards a light source or away from it or stationary in relation to it, the light from the source comes at you at exactly the same speed. That is an astounding fact that most people fail to grasp. Today is also a milestone for Einstein and the speed of light which I posted on three years ago http://www.bookofdaystales.com/e-mc%c2%b2/

Empedocles (c. 490–430 BC) was the first person to propose a theory of light, as far as we know, and he claimed that light has a finite speed. He maintained that light was something in motion, and therefore must take some time to travel. Aristotle argued, to the contrary, that “light is due to the presence of something, but it is not a movement.” Euclid and Ptolemy advanced Empedocles’ emission theory of vision, arguing that light is emitted from the eye, thus enabling sight. Based on that theory, Heron of Alexandria argued that the speed of light must be infinite because distant objects such as stars appear immediately upon opening the eyes.

Early Islamic philosophers initially agreed with the Aristotelian view that light had no speed of travel. In 1021, Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) published the Book of Optics, in which he presented a series of arguments dismissing the emission theory of vision in favor of the now accepted intromission theory, in which light moves from an object into the eye. This led Alhazen to propose that light must have a finite speed, and that the speed of light is variable, decreasing in denser bodies. He argued that light is substantial matter, the propagation of which requires time, even if this is hidden from our senses. Also in the 11th century, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī agreed that light has a finite speed, and observed that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound. In the 13th century, Roger Bacon argued that the speed of light in air was not infinite, using philosophical arguments backed by the writing of Alhazen and Aristotle. In the 1270s, the friar/natural philosopher Witelo considered the possibility of light traveling at infinite speed in vacuum, but slowing down in denser bodies.

In the early 17th century, Johannes Kepler believed that the speed of light was infinite, since empty space presents no obstacle to it. René Descartes argued that if the speed of light were to be finite, the Sun, Earth, and Moon would be noticeably out of alignment during a lunar eclipse. Since such misalignment had not been observed, Descartes concluded the speed of light was infinite. Descartes speculated that if the speed of light were found to be finite, his whole system of philosophy might be demolished. In Descartes’ derivation of Snell’s law (concerning the angle that light refracts when passing through media of different densities), he assumed that even though the speed of light was instantaneous, the denser the medium, the faster was light’s speed. Pierre de Fermat derived Snell’s law using the opposing assumption, the denser the medium the slower light traveled. Fermat also argued in support of a finite speed of light – and, of course, if you know your physics, Fermat was right and Descartes was wrong.

In 1629, Isaac Beeckman proposed an experiment in which a person observes the flash of a cannon reflecting off a mirror about one mile (1.6 km) away. In 1638, Galileo Galilei proposed an experiment, with an apparent claim to having performed it some years earlier, to measure the speed of light by observing the delay between uncovering a lantern and its perception some distance away. He was unable to distinguish whether light travel was instantaneous or not, but concluded that if it were not, it must nevertheless be extraordinarily rapid. In 1667, the Accademia del Cimento of Florence reported that it had performed Galileo’s experiment, with the lanterns separated by about one mile, but no delay was observed. The actual delay in this experiment would have been about 11 microseconds.

Rømer

The first quantitative estimate of the speed of light was made in 1676 by Rømer. From the observation that the periods of Jupiter’s innermost moon Io appeared to be shorter when the Earth was approaching Jupiter than when receding from it, he concluded that light travels at a finite speed, and estimated that it takes light 22 minutes to cross the diameter of Earth’s orbit. Christiaan Huygens combined this estimate with an estimate for the diameter of the Earth’s orbit to obtain an estimate of speed of light of 220000 km/s, 26% lower than the actual value.

In his 1704 book Opticks, Isaac Newton reported Rømer’s calculations of the finite speed of light and gave a value of “seven or eight minutes” for the time taken for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth (the modern value is 8 minutes 19 seconds). Newton queried whether Rømer’s eclipse shadows were colored; hearing that they were not, he concluded the different colors traveled at the same speed. In 1729, James Bradley discovered stellar aberration. From this effect he determined that light must travel 10,210 times faster than the Earth in its orbit (the modern figure is 10,066 times faster) or, equivalently, that it would take light 8 minutes 12 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

I’ll return to molecular gastronomy one more time for this physics post to be consistent, even though there’s an awful lot of spherical liquid things involved. It does get a tad tiresome after a while.

On this date in 1862, Louis Pasteur (and colleagues) concluded and published a series of experiments that definitively refuted the theory of spontaneous generation: the notion that living organisms can be generated by inanimate substances. Spontaneous generation was the dominant theory for thousands of years, and it’s not hard to understand why. When I tried to germinate avocado seeds in water in Myanmar for a school project, I had to dump the water constantly because every few days you could see mosquito larvae swimming in it. Where did they come from? Rotting meat frequently breeds maggots; old fruit seems to generate fruit flies. You need a good microscope, and controlled experiments, to figure out that living things are generated only by living things that are alike. Pasteur settled the matter, although there were holdouts for a while.

In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, Greek philosophers, called physiologoi (φυσιολόγοι) that is, investigators of “nature” (φυσις – from which we get “physics”), attempted to give natural explanations of phenomena that had previously been ascribed to the agency of the gods. The physiologoi sought the material principle or arche (ἀρχή) of things, emphasizing the rational unity of the external world and rejecting theological or supernatural explanations. Anaximander, who believed that all things arose from the elemental nature of the universe, the apeiron (ἄπειρον) or the “unbounded” or “infinite,” was likely the first Western thinker to propose that life developed spontaneously from nonliving matter. The primal chaos of the apeiron, eternally in motion, served as a substratum in which elemental opposites (e.g., wet and dry, hot and cold) generated and shaped the many and varied things in the world. According to Hippolytus of Rome in the 3rd century CE, Anaximander claimed that fish or fish-like creatures were first formed in the “wet” when acted on by the heat of the sun and that these aquatic creatures gave rise to human beings. Censorinus, writing in the 3rd century, reports:

Anaximander of Miletus considered that from warmed up water and earth emerged either fish or entirely fishlike animals. Inside these animals, men took form and embryos were held prisoners until puberty; only then, after these animals burst open, could men and women come out, now able to feed themselves.

Anaximenes, a pupil of Anaximander, thought that air was the element that imparted life and endowed creatures with motion and thought. He proposed that plants and animals, including human beings, arose from a primordial terrestrial slime, a mixture of earth and water, combined with the sun’s heat. Anaxagoras, too, believed that life emerged from a terrestrial slime. However, he held that the seeds of plants existed in the air from the beginning, and those of animals in the aether. Xenophanes traced the origin of man back to the transitional period between the fluid stage of the earth and the formation of land, under the influence of the sun.

In what has occasionally been seen as a prefiguration of a concept of natural selection, Empedocles accepted the spontaneous generation of life but held that different forms, made up of differing combinations of parts, spontaneously arose as though by trial and error: successful combinations formed the species we now see, whereas unsuccessful forms failed to reproduce.

Aristotle proposed that in sexual reproduction, the child inherits form (eidos) from the father and matter from the mother, as well as πνεῦμα (pneuma) – breath, life, or spirit – either from the father or from the environment. In spontaneous generation, the environment could effectively replace the parents’ contributions of form, matter, and pneuma:

Now there is one property that animals are found to have in common with plants. For some plants are generated from the seed of plants, whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some elemental principle similar to a seed; and of these latter plants some derive their nutriment from the ground, whilst others grow inside other plants … So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.

(History of Animals, Book V, Part 1)

I first came across this notion when I studied Virgil’s Georgics, Book IV, on bee keeping. Virgil advises the following, if a bee keeper loses his stock:

First they choose a narrow place, small enough for this purpose:they enclose it with a confined roof of tiles, walls close together,and add four slanting window lights facing the four winds.

Then they search out a bullock, just jutting his horns outof a two-year-old’s forehead: the breath from both its nostrilsand its mouth is stifled despite its struggles: it’s beaten to death,and its flesh pounded to a pulp through the intact hide.

They leave it lying like this in prison, and strew broken branchesunder its flanks, thyme and fresh rosemary.This is done when the Westerlies begin to stir the wavesbefore the meadows brighten with their new colours,before the twittering swallow hangs her nest from the eaves.

Meanwhile the moisture, warming in the softened bone, ferments,and creatures, of a type marvelous to see, swarm together,without feet at first, but soon with whirring wings as well,and more and more try the clear air, until they burst out,like rain pouring from summer clouds,or arrows from the twanging bows,whenever the lightly-armed Parthians first join battle.

Spontaneous generation is discussed as a fact in literature well into the Renaissance. Shakespeare says snakes and crocodiles form from the mud of the Nile:

Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun. So is your crocodile.

(Anthony and Cleopatra Act 2 scene 7)

Izaak Walton agrees when he says that eels “as rats and mice, and many other living creatures, are bred in Egypt, by the sun’s heat when it shines upon the overflowing of the river.”

Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644) used experimental techniques, such as growing a willow for five years and showing it increased mass while the soil showed a trivial decrease in comparison. He attributed the increase of mass to the absorption of water. His notes also describe a recipe for mice (a piece of soiled cloth plus wheat for 21 days) and scorpions (basil, placed between two bricks and left in sunlight). His notes suggest he may even have tried these things.

The ancient beliefs were subjected to testing starting in the 17th century. In 1668, Francesco Redi challenged the idea that maggots arose spontaneously from rotting meat. In the first major experiment to challenge spontaneous generation, he placed meat in a variety of sealed, open, and partially covered containers. Realizing that the sealed containers were deprived of air, he used “fine Naples veil”, and observed no worm on the meat, but they appeared on the cloth. Redi used his experiments to support the preexistence theory put forth by the Church at that time, which maintained that living things originated from parents. Pier Antonio Micheli, around 1729, observed that when fungal spores were placed on slices of melon the same type of fungi were produced that the spores came from, and from this observation he noted that fungi did not arise from spontaneous generation.

In 1745, John Needham performed a series of experiments on boiled broths. Believing that boiling would kill all living things, he showed that when sealed right after boiling, the broths would cloud, allowing the belief in spontaneous generation to persist. His studies were rigorously scrutinized by his peers and many of them agreed.

Lazzaro Spallanzani modified the Needham experiment in 1768, attempting to exclude the possibility of introducing a contaminating factor between boiling and sealing. His technique involved boiling the broth in a sealed container with the air partially evacuated to prevent explosions. Although he did not see growth, the exclusion of air left the question of whether air was an essential factor in spontaneous generation. However, by that time there was already widespread skepticism among major scientists, to the principle of spontaneous generation. Observation was increasingly demonstrating that whenever there was sufficiently careful investigation of mechanisms of biological reproduction, it was plain that processes involved basing of new structures on existing complex structures, rather from chaotic muds or dead materials.

Louis Pasteur’s 1859 experiment is widely seen as having settled the question of spontaneous generation. He boiled a meat broth in a flask that he invented called the swan-necked flask (because ithad a long neck that curved downward, like that of a swan). The idea was that the bend in the neck prevented falling particles from reaching the broth, while still allowing the free flow of air. The flask remained free of growth for an extended period. When the flask was turned so that particles could fall down the bends, the broth quickly became clouded. A flask in which broth was boiled and immediately exposed to air, became clouded quickly. Minority objections to the conclusiveness of the experiments were persistent, however, and subsequent, more rigorous, experiments were needed to bring the question to an end for the die-hards. Hey – we still have flat earthers.

The obvious ingredient for today’s celebratory recipe is Lyle’s golden syrup. The label has the ancient slogan on it, “Out of the strong came forth sweetness,” a reference to a riddle put by Samson in Judges 14:14, the answer to which is that dead lions propagate honey bees. Here is the recipe for treacle tart taken from the Lyle’s website (unedited):

Pulse the flour, butter and salt in a blender until the mixture resembles large crumbs. Add the water and briefly blend until it comes together in a ball – then wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

Cut off one-third of the pastry and set aside for the lattice top. Roll the rest of pastry out on a lightly floured surface to about 4cm (1½”) bigger than a loose-bottomed tart tin, 22cm (9”) x 3.5cm (1½”) deep. Line the tin with pastry, trim the excess and lightly prick with a fork, then chill for 30 minutes. Add the excess to the pastry set aside for the lattice top.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/170° Fan, 375°F, Gas 5. Lay some baking parchment in the tin over the pastry and then put your baking beans in, over the parchment. Place in the oven and pre-bake for 15 minutes on the middle shelf. Remove the paper and beans and bake for a further 8-10 minutes to dry the pastry out. Remove the tart from the oven and put it on a baking tray. Reduce the oven temperature down to 180°C/160°Fan, 350°F, Gas 4, ready for later.

Roll the extra lattice top pastry out thinly and set aside on a tray to chill in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes – this makes it easier to handle.

Gently warm the Lyle’s Golden Syrup in a pan over a low heat, remove, then add the butter and stir until melted. Leave to cool a little. Using a fork, beat the egg and cream together in a separate bowl, then quickly beat in the syrup mixture along with the lemon zest and crumbs. Pour into the pastry case.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and cut into 10 strips of 1cm width which are long to overhang the edges of the tart tin.

Lay 5 parallel strips equally spaced over the tart. Fold back every other strip and place one strip of dough perpendicular to the parallel strips. Unfold the folded strips over the perpendicular strip. Now take the parallel strips that are running underneath the perpendicular strip and fold them back over. Lay down a second perpendicular strip (evenly spaced) and unfold the folded parallel strips.

Continue this process until all 10 strips have been placed. Trim the edges of the strips for a neat finish to fit inside the tart.

Bake on the middle shelf for 45-50 minutes until richly brown and set. (The filling will still be a bit wobbly but it will firm up on cooling.) Remove, leave to cool until warm, then remove from the tin, slide onto a plate and serve.

On this date in 585 BCE there was a total solar eclipse. According to NASA, the eclipse peaked over the Atlantic Ocean at 37.9°N 46.2°W and the umbral path reached south-western Anatolia in the evening hours. This eclipse is significant for two reasons. First, the eclipse was accurately predicted by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Thales of Miletus. This report, which comes from The Histories of Herodotus is disputed because it is not clear how Thales could have done so, although he was an excellent mathematician. If it is true this is the earliest case in history of an eclipse being predicted. Second, according to Herodotus, the appearance of the eclipse was interpreted as an omen, and interrupted a battle between the Medes and the Lydians. The fighting immediately stopped, and they agreed to a truce. Because astronomers can calculate the dates of historical eclipses, the date of the battle is known with precision – a rarity in the ancient world.

Historical eclipses are a very valuable resource for historians, in that they allow a few historical events to be dated precisely, from which other dates and ancient calendars may be deduced. A solar eclipse of June 15, 763 BCE mentioned in an Assyrian text is important for the chronology of the Ancient Mideast, for example.

The method of using eclipses to date historical events does have problems, however. An eclipse recorded by Herodotus before Xerxes departed for his expedition against Greece – traditionally dated to 480 BCE – was matched by John Russell Hind to an annular eclipse of the Sun at Sardis on February 17, 478 BC. However, there was also a partial eclipse that was visible from Persia on October 2, 480 BCE. So, which eclipse was it?

Chinese records of eclipses begin at around 720 BCE. The 4th century BCE astronomer Shi Shen described the prediction of eclipses by using the relative positions of the Moon and Sun. In the Western hemisphere, there are few reliable records of eclipses before 800 CE, until the advent of Arab and monastic observations in the early medieval period. The first recorded observation of the sun’s corona (visible during a total eclipse) was made in Constantinople in 968 CE.

Thales of Miletus is also known for another prediction associated with the sun and weather. One story recounts that he bought all the olive presses in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. In another version of the same story, Aristotle explains that Thales reserved presses ahead of time at a discount only to rent them out at a high price when demand peaked, following his predictions of a particularly good harvest. This first version of the story would constitute the first creation and use of futures, whereas the second version would be the first creation and use of options.

So, it should be olive oil today. I use olive oil in a myriad ways. I always use it as the oil of choice when sautéing at the start of a soup or stew, like most Argentinos it is the only dressing I use for a salad, and nothing is better to start a meal than a little dish of olive oil for dipping crusty bread. For a recipe of the day I suggest pasta with olive oil and garlic. It’s such a simple and quick dish. It can be on the table in 20 minutes or less. The dish pictured below took less time than it took me to write out the recipe.

I won’t bother with exact quantities. You should be able to figure it out. Get your pasta cooking in salted boiling water. Then add a generous quantity of olive oil to a wide deep skillet. Add a good quantity of minced garlic (about two cloves per person), and heat the oil gently over slow heat. On no account let the garlic change color. All you are trying to do is flavor the oil and slightly cook the garlic so that it is not quite as sharp as the raw deal. Heat the oil during the cooking of the pasta, then drain the pasta and dump it wholesale into the oil and garlic. Swirl around so that the pasta is evenly coated and serve immediately with some crusty bread (to mop up the remaining oil on your plate), and a green salad drizzled with olive oil.

Author

My name is Juan Alejandro Forrest de Sloper. Daily I post an anniversary with a suitable recipe du jour. Although the anniversary material is often really prominent, try to remember that, first and foremost, this is a FOOD BLOG.

Please note that if you are more comfortable in a language other than English there is a Google translate app in this sidebar.

[Photo: Denise Yanko]

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Today is the birthday (1774) of John Chapman, generally known as Johnny Appleseed, Swedenborgian Christian missionary, early conservationist, and folk hero. Chapman was known as Johnny Appleseed because of his large number of fruit tree plantings. He is regarded informally as the patron saint of orchardists in the U.S.A., and today is commonly celebrated as […]

On this date in 1835, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reached the Galápagos Islands. The ship landed at Chatham, or San Cristobal, the easternmost island of the archipelago. His visit to the Galápagos Islands is justly famous because of the observations he made there that helped him develop the general principles of natural selection. […]

Today is International Chocolate Day. Well, actually, there are several dates that lay claim to this distinction, but I have chosen this one because it’s a slow day in the anniversary world. I could give you a whole song and dance about the history of chocolate, but I’m not going to. Instead I am going […]

Today is the birthday (1931) of Roger Penrose, mathematician, philosopher, and artist. I am a big fan. Some of you who read this blog regularly may wonder why I admire so many mathematicians; maybe this post will solve that puzzle. Penrose was born in Colchester on the east coast of England, and is the brother […]

On this date in 1964 the oldest known unitary organism, Prometheus, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing near the tree line on Wheeler Peak in eastern Nevada was cut down by a graduate student and United States Forest Service personnel for research purposes. The tree was at least 4862 years old […]

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet there is this line: “Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen” (Act 1 sc iii) Lammas is August 1, so today (Lammas Eve) is Juliet’s birthday. Romeo and Juliet was one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays (written some time between 1591 and 1595). It was a popular audience pleaser throughout […]

Today is Independence Day in Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu (Ripablik blong Vanuatu), an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived in 1605. […]

Today is the feast day of Martha of Bethany, as well as of her brother Lazarus of Bethany. I am going to focus on Martha today. Next year on this date, Deo volente, I’ll give you the story of Lazarus. Martha appears in three well known stories, one in Luke’s gospel and two in John’s. […]

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